


A Million Miles

by vienn_peridot



Series: Syngnath Chronicles [6]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: AU: Syngnath, Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Angst, Awkward Crush, Canon-Typical Violence, Courtship, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Energy Field Sexual Interfacing, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Incubator!Cyclonus, Incubator!Ratchet, Incubator!Shockwave, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Nuptial Gifts, Other, Ovaria!Drift, Ovaria!Rung, Oviposition, Past Abuse, Past Drug Addiction, Past Rape/Non-con, Sticky Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 12:06:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4059391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vienn_peridot/pseuds/vienn_peridot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the 'Main' IDW-set Syngnath timeline.<br/>I don't even know what to say about this.<br/>The usual Lost Light dramas plus four Syngnathi.<br/>We have a very broody, grumpy old Incubator!Ratchet with failing hands, Ovaria!Drift who is only just approaching a very late puberty thanks to the physical stress of growing up in the gutters and fighting a war, moderately broody Incubator!Cyclonus who does NOT want a tiny roommate who arouses his PROTECT THE YOUNGLING instincts thanksverymuch and Ovaria!Rung who just wants to have some sort of moderately functional community FFS.<br/>Please don't anyone tell Ultra Magus, he has enough headaches as it is!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Million Miles

_Ratchet stared at the unconscious form in Orion's arms for a full klick before he snapped out of it and sprang into motion, working desperately to save the completely improbable lifeform the Enforcer had brought him._

_On the surface the mech was just another one of the guttermech inhabitants of Rodion's notorious Dead End. Under the grime his armour was white and dark grey with bright yellow accents and a fast speedster altmode. Looking deeper as he worked, Ratchet found the undeniable physical evidence of a short, brutal lifetime filled with too much pain and too many hard choices. The young frame bore unmistakable evidence of earning fuel as a buymech and chronic addiction to several substances besides the obvious circuit booster currently frying the mech’s brain module._

_It was clear to Ratchet that the speedster intended his overdose to be fatal, although he refrained from mentioning this to Pax. The enforcer himself wasn't_ naive _as such but there were things he simply couldn’t understand._

_The possibility that someone –even someone who had been dumped in the gutters and left there to rot- would deliberately try to end their functioning was one of those things. Ratchet knew all too well why this particular guttermech would seek to offline by a method of his own choosing._

_He was Syngnathi._

_The first brief flash of an uncontrolled EM Field when the speedster woke up confirmed it._

Ratchet clawed his way out the memory purge, cycling his optics at the wall while memory code still trailing through his cortex had him half-convinces that he could still feel the young Ovaria’s field against his own, muzzy and wild and confused but with a hint of wary trust that _still_ made the medic’s Spark ache all these centuries later.

Of all the times his processor could have possibly picked to drag up that part of the ancient past up he had no idea why it picked now to do so. Fraggit, he was supposed to be packing, not taking side trip down memory lane!

Stuffing some datapads into a storage case, Ratchet suddenly realised that he hadn't thought of that day in _years_.

 _What the frag brought_ that _up?_

Making the decision to join Rodimus’ harebrained quest had been easy. Telling Bumblebee that he was leaving –and why- had been both harder and easier than he’d expected, especially with evidence of his decline sitting on a slab behind them. Oh the skills were all still there, he just didn’t have the ability to employ them anymore. He’d just gone and worn himself out, hands not even functioning well enough to let him pack properly. Two fingers jammed when he was trying to close the case on the datapads and Ratchet indulged himself in a few choice curses as he forcibly un-stuck them.

Maybe it was the NAIL’s suicide? Ratchet’s own processor trying to console him for failing to save the mech by reminding him of an attempt he’d thwarted. It could also have been seeing Drift again? Standing stoic and quiet behind Rodimus, all swooping curves from his new Cybertronian altmode while the fiery speedster worked the crowd like a maestro. Ratchet knew about Drift’s inability to hide his horns so he’d made sure to stay well out of the Ovaria’s potential EMF sensing range.

_Yeah, it was probably Drift._

Drift, that strange leaker from the Dead End who had turned into Megatron’s mad dog. Ratchet wrestled the case closed and shoved it into subspace, shuttering his optics against a small surge of memory files. There had been times during the war when Ratchet had honestly regretted saving the mech that had beome Deadlock.

Those times when the flood of wounded and dying nerve seemed to end, times when worked for several days straight without recharge, fuelling on the go because if he stopped or even slowed down for so much as a nanosecond because if he did then someone would die.

At those times bitterness had consumed Ratchet and he would wish that one time, just _one time_ he had been able to override both Medic and Incubator coding in order to let a patient die.

Especially when the patient had _wanted_ to die so badly.

Ratchet knew that contrary to popular belief, addicts weren't stupid. No matter how desperate they were for a hit they would make sure they were in some sort of bolthole or safe haven _before_ drugging themselves into oblivion. From what Pax had described of the crime scene, the leaker who left Ratchet’s circuit slab to become Deadlock had obviously intended to offline there. And Ratchet had thwarted his wish.

So, in a way, all the lives Deadlock had taken were on Ratchet’s conscience, too.

Maybe it was a twisted cosmic punishment, some form of revenge for forcing the young Ovaria to continue living when he hadn’t wanted to. Shaking his helm, Ratchet snorted through his vents at the idea of cosmic revenge. Trying to shove the uncomfortable thoughts aside, Ratchet scanned his empty room to make sure he had everything. It didn't matter. None of it mattered now. Soon they would both be aboard the Lost Light and Ratchet would just have to deal with each day as it came.

Ratchet wondered if he would be strong enough to survive it, or if he really wanted to.

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't planning on starting this fic for a while, but someone on Tumblr threw a coffee bribe at it so here we are.  
> Tags will be updated as needed. Let me know if you want something added.  
> Syngnath headcanons can be found [here](http://adhesivesandscrap.tumblr.com/tagged/syngnath-headcanons)


End file.
